Eurasianet

The attacks come as Russia, Armenia’s security guarantor, has been getting routed in Ukraine.

Baku is venturing ever closer to openly promoting secession for Iran’s large ethnic Azerbaijani minority.

Javakheti, a region once notorious for neglect and separatist tendencies, is steadily building ties with the rest of Georgia.

The escalation came as Azerbaijan has been trying to push Armenia to speed up the construction of a new road connecting Armenia to Karabakh.

The two sides have promised to continue consultations on “integration,” though that is a buzzword that analysts suggested was a face-saving measure.

The last two meetings between the two countries’ leaders have been in Brussels. Moscow has noticed.

While the new de facto president praised ties with Russia, he did not mention the referendum that his predecessor called on his way out of office.

The territory’s outgoing leader says the vote will take place in July. But he’ll be out of office by then and neither his successor, nor Russia itself, appear as interested in it as he is.

While Anatoliy Bibilov tried to boost his electoral chances by tying himself more tightly to Russia, analysts say his defeat will still not likely result in any substantial change in relations with Moscow.

The incumbent has come under fire for a controversial military deployment to Ukraine, and it’s not clear that a proposal to annex the territory to Russia will help him.

Under EU mediation, the two countries agreed to start work on a peace agreement that could finally end their decades-long conflict.

If Armenians stay in Karabakh under the Azerbaijani flag, it would represent an exception to the otherwise zero-sum game of territorial control in the region.

It’s not the first time the breakaway Georgian territory’s de facto authorities have signaled the intention. In the past Russia has blown the calls off, but its calculations may be different now.

As Russian forces perform more poorly than expected in Ukraine, the Russian peacekeeping mission in Karabakh is coming under increased scrutiny.

More than 20,000 Russians have already fled to Georgia in the days since their country launched the invasion of Ukraine. Many Georgians say they are not welcome.

Tbilisi was previously planning to apply in 2024, after further reforms. But domestic political pressure, and apparent positive signals from Brussels, has sped up the process.

The government appears wary of provoking Russia’s ire, but to many Georgians their government’s caution amounts to a cowardly abandonment of their Ukrainian allies.

To many in Azerbaijan, it appeared that the new agreement was aimed at ensuring their country’s loyalty to Russia during the attack on Ukraine. Officials said the timing was just a coincidence.

Every country in the region has its own relationship with self-proclaimed breakaway republics, forcing them to reckon in their own ways with Russia’s moves in Ukraine.

Russia usually stays out of the Caucasus information wars, but the crisis in Ukraine is re-igniting disputes over who is to blame for Georgia’s frozen conflicts.

The Moscow meeting was the launch of negotiations between the two countries, whose border has been closed since 1993.

The Russia-led security bloc will be sending peacekeeping forces, the first time in its history that its collective security provision has been exercised.

Yerevan and Ankara are now trying to rebuild ties, and in any case the ban didn’t work out economically for Armenia, officials said.

Our regional editors offer their informed predictions for the year ahead.

The International Court of Justice declined, however, to order more concrete measures related to Armenian prisoners and maps of land mines in Azerbaijan.